Eli Roth Catches Takashi Miike Fever

In "Cabin Fever", director Eli Roth pays homage to horror classics like "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," "Last House on the Left" and "Evil Dead." But Roth's tributes to those who've influenced him aren't confined to celluloid. At the premiere of "Cabin Fever", Roth honored another modern master by dressing up as Takashi Miike's "Ichi the Killer".

At 43 years old, Japanese director Takashi Miike already has over 60 movies to his name. The focus of Miike's movies is the violence and dysfunction he finds in modern Japanese culture, and as such they are unflinchingly brutal, graphic, and shockingly twisted. At the same time, they are populated with intriguing, sympathetic characters, and filmed and edited with astounding skill - especially considering his un-Hollywood budgets.

 In "Visitor Q" Miike unapologetically presents the audience with taboo inter-family relationships, necrophilia, voyeurism, and murder - yet despite the shock the images will inspire in even the most hardened gore fan, the plot and characters are so well-developed and intriguing that, as the movie ends, many viewers have found themselves cheering on the film's antiheroes.

Takashi Miike's brilliance has received worldwide attention only recently when, in 2000, his movies began showing at International film festivals. "Audition" - an eerie, terrifying tale about a man's disastrous encounter with a beautiful psycho - and "Dead or Alive" - a Yakuza gang war tale with one of the most insane endings ever - shocked and stirred audiences around the world. Even critics who take offense at Miike's subject matter find it hard to deny his skill as a director and storyteller. Luckily for non-Japanese speakers, as Miike's fame grows more of his films are becoming available with English subtitles.

Tom Mes of Midnight Eye cinema review says of Miike, "He is one of the very few directors who possess that rare talent of seeing the opportunities in any subject matter presented to them." Mes should know - his 400+ page book "Agitator: The Cinema of Takashi Miike", released on Fab Press this year, is an in-depth examination of Miike's entire career. And when you go "in-depth" with Takashi Miike, there is no telling what bizarre situations you might find - or whether you really want to find them.

"Cabin Fever" fans - or any horror fan - would be rewarded by doing a little digging around Roth's horror family tree. Whether it's to find out what inspired him to dress up as "Ichi", or if you're just wondering what makes Miike's infamous bathtub drowning scene so different than any other in cinematic history, consider checking out Takashi Miike's "Ichi the Killer", "Audition", "Dead or Alive" or "Graveyard of Honor" on DVD.

Source: Zap2It, Midnight Eye